Friday, July 1, 2016

One interesting thing going on, besides this also being Helsinki's Pride weekend, is the midnight sun. Also called "white nights", this is when sunsets are late, sunrises are early, and it never really gets completely dark. While the sun sets for a while, light can be seen on the horizon.

Around the summer solstice the sun is visible for 24 hours but this is way up north closer at the Artic Circle. Most of Scandinavia experiences these white nights, Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, plus Greenland, Russia, Alaska, and parts of Canada.

This photo was taken at 11 PM and as you can see it is still very much light outside. The night sky is defiantly more blue than black.

Our hotel has blackout curtains so I don't think it will be a problem getting a solid night's sleep before all of the festivities begin tomorrow.